Apolitical statement: The notion that churches will be packed on Easter Sunday, April 12, could be seen as dangerous wishful thinking. While I surmise that Mr. Trump was simply trying to be encouraging when he raised that possibility at a press conference, it has given rise to such dangerous wishful thinking on social media.
If the infectious disease experts think it's safe for people to congregate in crowds, then, of course, I, like every other Christian and pastor in the world, want to worship with God's people.
But medical professionals tell us that the coronavirus will not likely have reached its peak until the summer, especially since we only have significant lockdowns in some US states. (While, on successive days, the United Kingdom and India have joined the ranks of nations taking this step.)
Governors, both Republican and Democratic, have taken important steps in various states to mitigate this virus. But we have a long way to go yet.
Jesus could not be tempted by the devil to jump off the temple in Jerusalem despite God's promise in Psalm 91 that He will send His angels on behalf of believers to "lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone..."
Jesus flatly refused the devil, recalling that God's Word also tells believers, "Do not put the Lord your God to the test." (Matthew 4:7; Deuteronomy 6:16)
You see, God's promise of help to His people doesn't apply to circumstances in which God's people engage in deliberately dangerous behaviors that reflect poor stewardship of their lives. That would be, as Billy Graham used to say, "sowing your wild oats [in this case, engaging in the fantasy that believers are immune from the bad things that happen in our world], then praying for crop failure."
Showing posts with label Billy Graham. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Billy Graham. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
Monday, April 22, 2019
The Big Surprise
[This message was shared during the three Easter Sunday worship services with the people of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio and our friends and guests. Plan on worshiping with us this coming Sunday. Traditional worship happens at 8:45 AM and Modern worship happens at 11:00 AM.]
Luke 24:1-12
On the first Easter Sunday morning, Jesus’ disciples were taken by surprise. None of them had expected that Jesus would rise from the dead.
We may find their surprise surprising. After all, Jesus had told them often enough what He was on earth to do.
For example, Jesus once told His followers, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life (Luke 9:22).”
Later, speaking of Himself in the third person as “the Son of Man,” Jesus said: “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him; they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again (Luke 18:31-33).”
The gospels tell us that every time Jesus mentioned that He was going to be crucified and then rise from the dead, they didn’t get it.
Their incomprehension is understandable for several reasons.
For one, I doubt that any of us have ever known someone who was dead for several days, then brought back to life by God the Father. Neither had the disciples.*
The other reason the disciples would have found Jesus’ prediction of His own death and resurrection incomprehensible was cultural. While many Jews believed that there would be a resurrection of God’s righteous people (like the Pharisees), they didn’t believe that one individual could be raised from the dead. For the Jews, resurrection was a group activity to take place at the end of history.
And so, the first Easter Sunday caught the first disciples off-guard. We see that in our gospel lesson, Luke 24:1-12. Let’s take a look at it together.
Verse 1: “On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.”
A contingent of Jesus’ female disciples, people who have followed Him since His ministry began in Galilee go on the first day of the week, Sunday, to anoint Jesus’ dead body. This day will also turn out to be “the first day” of a new life for them and all who confess Jesus as their Lord. But they don’t know that yet.
Verse 2: “They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.”
Luke’s account of the first Easter begins much as his account of Jesus’ birth began. Just as an angel came to Mary, a young woman who trusted in God, to give the surprising news that she would bear the Savior of the world, on Easter, women who trusted in God were met by two men we will learn later in Luke’s gospel were also angels, to give equally surprising news. If any so-called Christian tries to tell you that women are inferior to me, don’t believe them. A man didn’t give birth to the Savior; a woman did. (Most women will tell you that if birthing were left up to men, there would be no new babies born.) Men weren’t the first ones entrusted with proclaiming the Easter message; women were.
But, lest we think this means women are perfect, we come to verse 5: “In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: “The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.”’ Then they remembered his words.”
The women, overwhelmed by the gleaming angels reflecting the blazing perfection of God, fell to their knees while the angels chastised them. “Why are you looking for a risen Savior in a place for the dead? [It's like the angels are telling them, "Duh!"] Don’t you remember all the times He told you that He was going to rise again?” It’s with this reminder that the women, who had heard Jesus foretell His death and resurrection, remember.
Haven’t you had the same experience? You’ve had to be reminded of something repeatedly before you could remember it...and maybe you don't remember even then.
In one of his Narnia books, C.S. Lewis tells about an important message being entrusted to a young girl named Jill by the fictional Christ figure of those books, Aslan. Make sure you review what I’m telling you all the time, Aslan tells Jill, otherwise you might forget it. Of course, Jill doesn’t do what Aslan tells her to do and when the time comes for her to remember the message, she’s forgotten it all together.
Sometimes, I allow myself to get so caught up in the stuff of life that I forget about God’s promises.
Ones like, “I am with you always (Matthew 28:20).”
And like, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die (John 11:25-26).”
Or, “...whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him (Colossians 3:17).”
The Bible repeatedly tells us to remember God’s Word and God’s promises. God told His ancient people: “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates (Deuteronomy 6:6-9).” And, in the New Testament book of Hebrews, God tells Christians through the preacher: "...let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another..." (Hebrews 10:24-25)
Had Jesus’ first disciples spent more time listening to and reminding themselves and each other of God’s Word, they wouldn’t have been so surprised that first Easter.
And though God's love for us, its depth and breadth, always is surprising me, aybe we wouldn’t be so surprised by the things that happen to us in this life or so hesitant about following where Jesus leads us if we spent more time remembering God’s Word and God’s promises given through Christ!
We need to learn to be less self-reliant and more God-reliant.
Verse 9: “When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.”
Faith in the crucified and risen Jesus, the faith that saves us from sin and death, isn’t easy. One of my favorite Christian musicians, Steve Taylor, says simply, "It's harder to believe than not to to."
We can’t decide to believe. Faith is a gift from God given to those who are willing to believe, who understand that the notion of a risen Savior is nonsense to a disbelieving world.
It will seem like nonsense to us too, unless we leave ourselves open to the Holy Spirit giving faith to us when we’re faced with temptation, despair, adversity, grief, or death. We need be open to letting God surprise us again and again!
On Friday night, after the Good Friday service, Sarah and I watched a documentary about the evangelist Billy Graham. It recounted the famous crisis of faith that Graham underwent while preaching under the auspices of Youth for Christ. He was a modern man living in a modern world. How could he believe in the Bible?
Ultimately, Graham knelt down in a woods with an open Bible and told God, “I don’t understand everything in this book. But, I ask You to help me to trust in it as Your Word, just as I trust in Jesus.”
Graham learned what I have learned and relearned as a disciple of Jesus: If I am open to trusting in Jesus, He will empower me to trust in Him.
If I will only bring my needy, sinful, mistake-riddled life to Him, He will breathe the new life of faith into me. The apostle Paul writes: “...no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed,’ and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3).”
The Holy Spirit wants to give you a deep, growing faith in the risen Jesus. Are you willing to receive Him by faith today and each day? That’s the question for us all in the face of Christ’s Easter surprise.
As many of you know, some forty years ago, God brought me out of implacable atheism to faith in Jesus Christ. It all started when I began to observe the faith in Christ I saw exemplified in the people of Ann's home church. None of them claimed to be perfect. But I saw in them a peace in the face of difficulty and a love in the midst of a crazy world that I needed to understand.
As I studied the Bible and listened to the reflections on Christian faith of the people of Bethlehem Lutheran Church, I found myself being tugged toward Jesus. I began praying, even though I wasn't sure that the risen Jesus Who reveals the heart of God to the whole human race was there or real. I told Him that while I didn't yet believe, I was willing to believe. I don't know the exact hour or minute, but I do know that God heard that prayer. I fell in love with Jesus and I came to know that He wanted to save me from myself, my sins, my self-reliance. He made me see that going my own way--relying on own thoughts, my own will, my own heart--was, in the words of another song, "the highway to hell." He began to help me trust in the crucified and risen Jesus, "the way and the truth and the life," to receive forgiveness of my sins and for new life through Him.
Faith in the risen Christ happens and is made stronger when God's grace meets our open minds, open wills, open hearts, whether as infants at the baptismal font or as needy sinners at the Communion altar.
It happens when, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we gladly hear and learn the good news of new life through Jesus. It's not a matter of doing anything, any more than it was for the first Christians. It's a matter of doing nothing and letting God do it all!
The disciples were skeptical about all of that as the first Easter began. But at least one of the apostles though, was curious about what the women said about the empty tomb. Verse 12: “Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.”
The gospel lesson ends with Peter still not believing that Jesus was risen. That would come later.
For me, knowing that the first disciples were skeptical about the resurrection is evidence that Jesus did rise. If Hollywood had written the gospels, all of the disciples would have been waiting for Jesus to emerge from His tomb and immediately believed in Jesus’ resurrection and, without doubt or evidence, begun to tell the world.
But it took time for their faith to get to that point.
Jesus had to show Himself to them.
He had to teach them some more.
He had to send His Holy Spirit after He had ascended to heaven to help them remember so that they, in turn, could tell us so that we can remember.
The initial mystification of the first disciples on the first Easter has about it the whiff of authenticity, telling me that they came to believe in the risen Jesus against their own worldly judgment in the face of seeing the risen Jesus, eating with Him, hearing Him, talking with Him, touching Him.
The honesty of the gospels in telling us that the first disciples didn't originally think that the resurrection was true or even possible, tells me that because these skeptics came around, I can believe in Easter too!
Everybody, it seems, knows the most famous words Jesus ever spoke: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).”
When we attend to Christ and His Word, turning from sin and to Christ, and when we open ourselves to faith in Him, Christ builds that faith within us. We will live in the certainty that He is with us always, even now, and that one day, we will have the greatest surprise of all: Jesus will raise from the dead all who trust in Him for to spend eternity with Him. This is the great promise of Easter. Never forget it! Happy Easter, friends. Amen
*Although they had seen Jesus call several people back from the dead.
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
In The Language of God, Collins, director of the human project, talks about how his life in the science of genetics, led him to faith.
[In Mere Christianity, Lewis, a scholar and one-time atheist, explains the Christian faith.]
Luke 24:1-12
On the first Easter Sunday morning, Jesus’ disciples were taken by surprise. None of them had expected that Jesus would rise from the dead.
We may find their surprise surprising. After all, Jesus had told them often enough what He was on earth to do.
For example, Jesus once told His followers, “The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life (Luke 9:22).”
Later, speaking of Himself in the third person as “the Son of Man,” Jesus said: “We are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be delivered over to the Gentiles. They will mock him, insult him and spit on him; they will flog him and kill him. On the third day he will rise again (Luke 18:31-33).”
The gospels tell us that every time Jesus mentioned that He was going to be crucified and then rise from the dead, they didn’t get it.
Their incomprehension is understandable for several reasons.
For one, I doubt that any of us have ever known someone who was dead for several days, then brought back to life by God the Father. Neither had the disciples.*
The other reason the disciples would have found Jesus’ prediction of His own death and resurrection incomprehensible was cultural. While many Jews believed that there would be a resurrection of God’s righteous people (like the Pharisees), they didn’t believe that one individual could be raised from the dead. For the Jews, resurrection was a group activity to take place at the end of history.
And so, the first Easter Sunday caught the first disciples off-guard. We see that in our gospel lesson, Luke 24:1-12. Let’s take a look at it together.
Verse 1: “On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.”
A contingent of Jesus’ female disciples, people who have followed Him since His ministry began in Galilee go on the first day of the week, Sunday, to anoint Jesus’ dead body. This day will also turn out to be “the first day” of a new life for them and all who confess Jesus as their Lord. But they don’t know that yet.
Verse 2: “They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.”
Luke’s account of the first Easter begins much as his account of Jesus’ birth began. Just as an angel came to Mary, a young woman who trusted in God, to give the surprising news that she would bear the Savior of the world, on Easter, women who trusted in God were met by two men we will learn later in Luke’s gospel were also angels, to give equally surprising news. If any so-called Christian tries to tell you that women are inferior to me, don’t believe them. A man didn’t give birth to the Savior; a woman did. (Most women will tell you that if birthing were left up to men, there would be no new babies born.) Men weren’t the first ones entrusted with proclaiming the Easter message; women were.
But, lest we think this means women are perfect, we come to verse 5: “In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, ‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: “The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.”’ Then they remembered his words.”
The women, overwhelmed by the gleaming angels reflecting the blazing perfection of God, fell to their knees while the angels chastised them. “Why are you looking for a risen Savior in a place for the dead? [It's like the angels are telling them, "Duh!"] Don’t you remember all the times He told you that He was going to rise again?” It’s with this reminder that the women, who had heard Jesus foretell His death and resurrection, remember.
Haven’t you had the same experience? You’ve had to be reminded of something repeatedly before you could remember it...and maybe you don't remember even then.
In one of his Narnia books, C.S. Lewis tells about an important message being entrusted to a young girl named Jill by the fictional Christ figure of those books, Aslan. Make sure you review what I’m telling you all the time, Aslan tells Jill, otherwise you might forget it. Of course, Jill doesn’t do what Aslan tells her to do and when the time comes for her to remember the message, she’s forgotten it all together.
Sometimes, I allow myself to get so caught up in the stuff of life that I forget about God’s promises.
Ones like, “I am with you always (Matthew 28:20).”
And like, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die (John 11:25-26).”
Or, “...whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him (Colossians 3:17).”
The Bible repeatedly tells us to remember God’s Word and God’s promises. God told His ancient people: “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates (Deuteronomy 6:6-9).” And, in the New Testament book of Hebrews, God tells Christians through the preacher: "...let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another..." (Hebrews 10:24-25)
Had Jesus’ first disciples spent more time listening to and reminding themselves and each other of God’s Word, they wouldn’t have been so surprised that first Easter.
And though God's love for us, its depth and breadth, always is surprising me, aybe we wouldn’t be so surprised by the things that happen to us in this life or so hesitant about following where Jesus leads us if we spent more time remembering God’s Word and God’s promises given through Christ!
We need to learn to be less self-reliant and more God-reliant.
Verse 9: “When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense.”
Faith in the crucified and risen Jesus, the faith that saves us from sin and death, isn’t easy. One of my favorite Christian musicians, Steve Taylor, says simply, "It's harder to believe than not to to."
We can’t decide to believe. Faith is a gift from God given to those who are willing to believe, who understand that the notion of a risen Savior is nonsense to a disbelieving world.
It will seem like nonsense to us too, unless we leave ourselves open to the Holy Spirit giving faith to us when we’re faced with temptation, despair, adversity, grief, or death. We need be open to letting God surprise us again and again!
On Friday night, after the Good Friday service, Sarah and I watched a documentary about the evangelist Billy Graham. It recounted the famous crisis of faith that Graham underwent while preaching under the auspices of Youth for Christ. He was a modern man living in a modern world. How could he believe in the Bible?
Ultimately, Graham knelt down in a woods with an open Bible and told God, “I don’t understand everything in this book. But, I ask You to help me to trust in it as Your Word, just as I trust in Jesus.”
Graham learned what I have learned and relearned as a disciple of Jesus: If I am open to trusting in Jesus, He will empower me to trust in Him.
If I will only bring my needy, sinful, mistake-riddled life to Him, He will breathe the new life of faith into me. The apostle Paul writes: “...no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed,’ and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3).”
The Holy Spirit wants to give you a deep, growing faith in the risen Jesus. Are you willing to receive Him by faith today and each day? That’s the question for us all in the face of Christ’s Easter surprise.
As many of you know, some forty years ago, God brought me out of implacable atheism to faith in Jesus Christ. It all started when I began to observe the faith in Christ I saw exemplified in the people of Ann's home church. None of them claimed to be perfect. But I saw in them a peace in the face of difficulty and a love in the midst of a crazy world that I needed to understand.
As I studied the Bible and listened to the reflections on Christian faith of the people of Bethlehem Lutheran Church, I found myself being tugged toward Jesus. I began praying, even though I wasn't sure that the risen Jesus Who reveals the heart of God to the whole human race was there or real. I told Him that while I didn't yet believe, I was willing to believe. I don't know the exact hour or minute, but I do know that God heard that prayer. I fell in love with Jesus and I came to know that He wanted to save me from myself, my sins, my self-reliance. He made me see that going my own way--relying on own thoughts, my own will, my own heart--was, in the words of another song, "the highway to hell." He began to help me trust in the crucified and risen Jesus, "the way and the truth and the life," to receive forgiveness of my sins and for new life through Him.
Faith in the risen Christ happens and is made stronger when God's grace meets our open minds, open wills, open hearts, whether as infants at the baptismal font or as needy sinners at the Communion altar.
It happens when, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we gladly hear and learn the good news of new life through Jesus. It's not a matter of doing anything, any more than it was for the first Christians. It's a matter of doing nothing and letting God do it all!
The disciples were skeptical about all of that as the first Easter began. But at least one of the apostles though, was curious about what the women said about the empty tomb. Verse 12: “Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.”
The gospel lesson ends with Peter still not believing that Jesus was risen. That would come later.
For me, knowing that the first disciples were skeptical about the resurrection is evidence that Jesus did rise. If Hollywood had written the gospels, all of the disciples would have been waiting for Jesus to emerge from His tomb and immediately believed in Jesus’ resurrection and, without doubt or evidence, begun to tell the world.
But it took time for their faith to get to that point.
Jesus had to show Himself to them.
He had to teach them some more.
He had to send His Holy Spirit after He had ascended to heaven to help them remember so that they, in turn, could tell us so that we can remember.
The initial mystification of the first disciples on the first Easter has about it the whiff of authenticity, telling me that they came to believe in the risen Jesus against their own worldly judgment in the face of seeing the risen Jesus, eating with Him, hearing Him, talking with Him, touching Him.
The honesty of the gospels in telling us that the first disciples didn't originally think that the resurrection was true or even possible, tells me that because these skeptics came around, I can believe in Easter too!
Everybody, it seems, knows the most famous words Jesus ever spoke: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (John 3:16).”
When we attend to Christ and His Word, turning from sin and to Christ, and when we open ourselves to faith in Him, Christ builds that faith within us. We will live in the certainty that He is with us always, even now, and that one day, we will have the greatest surprise of all: Jesus will raise from the dead all who trust in Him for to spend eternity with Him. This is the great promise of Easter. Never forget it! Happy Easter, friends. Amen
*Although they had seen Jesus call several people back from the dead.
[I'm the pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
In The Language of God, Collins, director of the human project, talks about how his life in the science of genetics, led him to faith.
[In Mere Christianity, Lewis, a scholar and one-time atheist, explains the Christian faith.]
Sunday, January 15, 2017
Stick to the job at hand, Franklin!
I have long been an admirer of evangelist Billy Graham.
For years, I financially supported his organization with small contributions.
My ministry and my life as a Christian have been enriched by attending two Billy Graham Schools of Evangelism.
And, in what turned out to be the penultimate evangelism campaign of his illustrious career, I served on five different committees for the Billy Graham Mission in Cincinnati, held at Paul Brown Stadium. I served (and was the only Lutheran on) the invitation committee that asked Dr. Graham to come to the Queen City. Later, I chaired a regional prayer team, two other teams, and, finally, as chair of the counseling team, that group of counselors who met people who came forward to give their lives to Christ after Graham issued his call to faith in Christ.
I've also read and learned a lot from Billy Graham's books like Facing Death, The Holy Spirit, Angels: God's Secret Agents, and others. Billy Graham's preaching and teaching have been a source of inspiration to me from the moment I came to faith in Jesus Christ.
Along with Martin Luther, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Phillipp Melanchthon, Martin Luther King, Jr., and my mentor, Pastor Bruce Schein, Billy Graham is one of my heroes as a Christian servant-leader.
But I have become disgusted with the overt political pronouncements being made by Mr. Graham's son, Franklin, now head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA).
Billy Graham grew close to presidents, of course, especially to Democrat Lyndon Johnson, for whom Graham almost decided to lead the War on Poverty. Graham was nearly as close to Johnson's successor, Richard Nixon.
After being used by Nixon though, Billy Graham decided that while he would be available as a pastor to presidents, he would never again allow himself or his message to be co-opted by a political figure. He had bigger fish to fry: to make disciples of Jesus Christ by proclaiming the good news of new life and the forgiveness of sins for all who repent and trustingly surrender to Jesus.
When pastors or evangelists get involved with politics, they risk alienating groups of people who associate political parties and candidates with the good news, the gospel, and so reject Jesus with the candidates or parties they don't like.
Franklin Graham seems to ignore this lesson learned by his father. (One I've had to learn myself after mistakenly making a run for the state house of representatives while still serving as a pastor.) The younger Graham has recently made statements that seem to intimate that God preferred Donald Trump in the recent election.
That's ridiculous. I guarantee that I know as many committed, prayerful Christians who supported candidates other than Trump in the recent presidential election as those who did back the real estate mogul.
I think that it's fine for Graham to offer an opening prayer at the Trump Inauguration this coming Friday. I myself have offered prayers for the openings of a legislative session of the Ohio House of Representatives and, more recently, of a session of the Centerville (OH) City Council. We need to pray for public leaders, both in our public and private praying.
But both clergy and the Church should stand clear of seeming to stamp the approval of Jesus on particular political parties, policies, or candidates. It's an unauthorized misuse of Jesus' name and it inhibits our capacity to reach others with a far more important message than any that might be offered by any office-holder or political party: The message about Jesus than can transform believers from God's enemies to God's eternal friends.
Some day, when I'm no longer involved daily in pastoral ministry (I think I may retire in about ten or twenty years...I'm only 63 and feel as though I'm just getting started!), I may get engaged in publicly talking my politics.
But until then, I'm sticking with commending Christ. I'd rather that one person would come to faith in Jesus through the witness of Christians like me than see fifty million people vote for the candidate of my choice. The reason for that is simple: The candidate of my choice may be a bust, but Jesus will never let anyone down, now or in eternity. Only Jesus can give us life with God that never ends.
Just my two cents' worth.
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
For years, I financially supported his organization with small contributions.
My ministry and my life as a Christian have been enriched by attending two Billy Graham Schools of Evangelism.
And, in what turned out to be the penultimate evangelism campaign of his illustrious career, I served on five different committees for the Billy Graham Mission in Cincinnati, held at Paul Brown Stadium. I served (and was the only Lutheran on) the invitation committee that asked Dr. Graham to come to the Queen City. Later, I chaired a regional prayer team, two other teams, and, finally, as chair of the counseling team, that group of counselors who met people who came forward to give their lives to Christ after Graham issued his call to faith in Christ.
I've also read and learned a lot from Billy Graham's books like Facing Death, The Holy Spirit, Angels: God's Secret Agents, and others. Billy Graham's preaching and teaching have been a source of inspiration to me from the moment I came to faith in Jesus Christ.
Along with Martin Luther, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Phillipp Melanchthon, Martin Luther King, Jr., and my mentor, Pastor Bruce Schein, Billy Graham is one of my heroes as a Christian servant-leader.
But I have become disgusted with the overt political pronouncements being made by Mr. Graham's son, Franklin, now head of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA).
Billy Graham grew close to presidents, of course, especially to Democrat Lyndon Johnson, for whom Graham almost decided to lead the War on Poverty. Graham was nearly as close to Johnson's successor, Richard Nixon.
[Billy Graham and Lyndon Johnson]
After being used by Nixon though, Billy Graham decided that while he would be available as a pastor to presidents, he would never again allow himself or his message to be co-opted by a political figure. He had bigger fish to fry: to make disciples of Jesus Christ by proclaiming the good news of new life and the forgiveness of sins for all who repent and trustingly surrender to Jesus.
When pastors or evangelists get involved with politics, they risk alienating groups of people who associate political parties and candidates with the good news, the gospel, and so reject Jesus with the candidates or parties they don't like.
Franklin Graham seems to ignore this lesson learned by his father. (One I've had to learn myself after mistakenly making a run for the state house of representatives while still serving as a pastor.) The younger Graham has recently made statements that seem to intimate that God preferred Donald Trump in the recent election.
That's ridiculous. I guarantee that I know as many committed, prayerful Christians who supported candidates other than Trump in the recent presidential election as those who did back the real estate mogul.
I think that it's fine for Graham to offer an opening prayer at the Trump Inauguration this coming Friday. I myself have offered prayers for the openings of a legislative session of the Ohio House of Representatives and, more recently, of a session of the Centerville (OH) City Council. We need to pray for public leaders, both in our public and private praying.
But both clergy and the Church should stand clear of seeming to stamp the approval of Jesus on particular political parties, policies, or candidates. It's an unauthorized misuse of Jesus' name and it inhibits our capacity to reach others with a far more important message than any that might be offered by any office-holder or political party: The message about Jesus than can transform believers from God's enemies to God's eternal friends.
Some day, when I'm no longer involved daily in pastoral ministry (I think I may retire in about ten or twenty years...I'm only 63 and feel as though I'm just getting started!), I may get engaged in publicly talking my politics.
But until then, I'm sticking with commending Christ. I'd rather that one person would come to faith in Jesus through the witness of Christians like me than see fifty million people vote for the candidate of my choice. The reason for that is simple: The candidate of my choice may be a bust, but Jesus will never let anyone down, now or in eternity. Only Jesus can give us life with God that never ends.
Just my two cents' worth.
[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Friday, June 26, 2015
President Obama's Eulogy for Rev. Clementa Pinckney
What a wonderful, powerful eulogy that President Obama gave today at the funeral of Reverend Clementa Pinckney. And his observation that we are all sinners to whom God extends grace and we are left to decide how we will receive it was right on. I also loved his sometimes off-key rendition of 'Amazing Grace.' His use of Hebrews 11:13 at the beginning of the speech was wonderful.
Presidents must, in times of national tragedy, function--in a phrase I once heard Reverend Billy Graham use of Bill Clinton--as kind of national pastor. President Obama did that today, reaching out to all Americans, seeking mutual understanding and respect under the grace of God.
You don't have to like the President's politics to appreciate the words of healing and hope he shared today.
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Peace with God
[This was the sermon prepared for today's 10:15 worship service with the people and friends of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio. Today was Friend Day at Saint Matthew.]
I once heard a man named Bill Hybels say that every human being, without exception, is looking for the same thing. Hybels called the thing we’re all looking for, “it.”
The ways human beings look for “it” vary.
Some think they can find “it” by living a life in which they stock up pleasure, committing themselves to, in the words of our Declaration of Independence, “the pursuit of happiness.” But “it” can’t be found by that route.
Some people look for “it” by working hard for money or power or knowledge.
Others are sure that the way to “it” is by being a good person, giving to charities, or living a lifestyle of love.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with happiness, knowledge, hard work, giving, success, money, or even love. These are all good things in themselves.
But if we look to them as the means by which we find “it,” we will be disappointed.
And if we aren’t disappointed, then we are settling for much less than we were made for as human beings.
None of us should do that!
So, what is this “it”?
A man named Augustine, who lived in the fourth century, was the preeminent scholar of his day, at a time when scholars were treated like rock stars. Augustine partook of every sinful pleasure the world had to offer.
But it wasn’t enough.
In the summer of 386, deeply unhappy, Augustine threw himself down under a fig tree in desperation. There he sensed a voice, like that of a child, repeating to him over and over, “Pick up and read. Pick up and read.”
The voice was so real to Augustine that, at first, he thought it was that of a real nearby child playing some game. Then he understood that the voice had some other source.
At that time, Augustine was staying with some monks on a retreat where he hoped he could get things together. He wasn’t interested in being a Christian, mind you. His mother was a Christian and he had no interest in becoming a religious kook!
But, weeping under the fig tree, Augustine kept hearing that voice: “Pick up and read. Pick up and read.”
He later said that he could only interpret the repeated phrase to mean that he had to run into the house where he was staying, pick up a Bible from a shelf there, and read the first words he laid eyes on. He followed his instructions.
The first passage he read was in the book of Romans, chapter 13, verses 13 to 14: “Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ...”
It was then that Augustine, to that point no believer in God, surrendered his life and will to the God revealed in Jesus Christ.
He later said in a prayer, “Almighty God, You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You.”
Not by any effort of His own, but solely by the effort of the God Who reached out to him and Who still reaches out to you and me today, Augustine received “it": peace with God.
You may say, “We might as well close up shop right now, preacher. I’m not at war with God. I may not pay much attention to God, but I’m not at war with God.”
Look! We are born at war with God!
We’re born wanting our own ways.
In the Old Testament, King David, a man the Bible later describes as “a man after God’s own heart,” had to admit, “I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.”
Sin is in the human gene pool. We inherit it from our parents and grandparents.
Sin is the condition of enmity toward God and of willfulness to do our own thing that caused me, when I wasn’t yet three years old, to ignore my mother when she told me not to pick up my baby sister and with Mom no more than five steps away, to pick her up and promptly drop her on her head, my very first childhood memory. Nobody had to teach me how to sin; I came equipped with that knowledge!
The condition of sin is a wall between God and us, between God and others.
It’s what makes it impossible for us, by our own reason or strength or effort, to love God or to love others as we love ourselves, even though the law of God written on our hearts tells us that living like that is what it means to be human!
Even people who have never heard of God have a sense that they were made to experience "it," what we know to be the peace of God, whether they can articulate that or not.
And some people are so desperate for peace with God that they fall for humanly-created religions like Islam, Mormonism, or Scientology.
U2 gave expression to our common desire for “it,” when they sang, “But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”
I want to be honest with you. I don’t always live in the peace of God. I let “it” slip out of my hands.
Usually without realizing it, I go on the warpath against God.
Feelings of bitterness toward those who have hurt me get my attention. Instead of asking God to bless others, I find myself praying that God would “fix them” and make them over in an image more convenient and convivial to me.
The desire to do what I want to do instead of what God wants me to do takes first place in my life.
My sinful self, along with the sin of the world and the sinful things that Satan tempts us all to do, conspire to take over my life and rob me of peace with God.
So I come to God many times a day, to ask God to tear down the wall of sin, to help me live in peace with Him, with others, and with myself, to remember that there is no peace when we’re looking out for ourselves.
But how does peace with God come to us?
I want to share with you what’s called “the Roman road,” the way peace comes to us as described in the New Testament book of Romans, the book of the Bible from which Augustine read on that summer day when he found his rest in God. I’ll also mention a few other passages in other parts of the Bible.
How do we have peace with God? First: To have peace with God, we must realize that God loves us and He wants to have everlasting peace with Him, along with a life made new by Him, a life He wants to give to us for all eternity.
When we have bad things come into our lives, as they do in all lives, we’re tempted to think that God has it in for us. A month or so ago, when I learned I had Celiac Disease, two years after I had a heart attack that took out 40% of my heart and one year after I'd learned that my heart was so weak I needed a pacemaker and defibrillator and also had to have a small melanoma cancer removed from my leg, I confess to you that I asked God why He was piling things on.
I'm ashamed of those feelings, frankly, because the Bible teaches us that, in this fallen world, bad things happen to everyone, no exceptions.
But we can have peace with God even in hard times. Romans 5:1 says: “...having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
What does this mean? Just this: The rightful fate for everyone who has sin is death. Another passage of Romans puts it this way: “the wages of sin is death.”
Think of it like this: We are all guilty of sin. If we were tried for our sin, the evidence would be overwhelming. To be justified though, is to have the verdict of “not guilty” declared over our lives.
Anyone who is declared “not guilty” of sin is at peace with God.
It was this “not guilty” verdict that changed Augustine’s life.
God wants us all to experience that.
God loves us and wants us to enjoy peace with Him. That’s why God in the flesh, Jesus, said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). God wants to give us:
You and I aren’t machines. God didn’t program us to do whatever He wanted. God gives us the power to make choices in our lives. We can choose to return His love to Him or not.
The problem, of course, is that the condition of sin has us bound so tightly that even if we resolve to return God’s love or to be at peace with God, we can’t make the decision stick.
We’re like kids peering into a shop filled with candy that’s off-limits to us because our hands and feet are manacled, in this case by our sin.
We can’t get to peace with God by our own efforts, no matter how hard we try. As Romans 7:19 says, “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.” That's why we Lutherans say in the Order for Confession and Forgiveness: "We are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves." Even when we want to choose peace with God and obedience to His commands, we are incapable of making that choice.
Third: To have peace with God, we need to know that God intervenes on our behalf. Romans 5:8 says: “...God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
The Old Testament sacrificial law held that an unblemished lamb could represent people on the altar in the temple in Jerusalem. There, the lamb was sacrificed and the repentant believers were spattered with the blood of the lamb. The lamb took the sinners‘ rightful wages, death, and the repentant were forgiven, for that moment.
But as our second lesson for today, from Hebrews, reminds us, Jesus, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world, bears the sins of all the world, once and for all.
Fourth: We must receive, by faith, Christ, the One Who has died and risen for us. Romans 10:9 says: “...if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” What an incredible promise!
Because of God's charitable love for us, what the Bible calls "grace," all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ are saved from the condition of sin and its consequence--death and futility.
When you entrust your life to Jesus Christ, you will have forgiveness, life, purpose, and peace with God.
Now, I don’t want to simplify things. Having peace and eternity with God are free gifts God grants to all who turn from sin and trust in Jesus Christ. But they are gifts we find it easy to let go of.
Faith itself, the Bible teaches, isn’t something we can talk ourselves into, but only receive just as we receive any other gift.
And as long as we live in this world, our genetic predisposition to sin will haunt us.
Jesus was and is God in the flesh, perfect and sinless, conceived not by a sinful man and a sinful woman, but by the Holy Spirit. But if Jesus was tempted and tested, we can expect to be tempted and tested too!
Jesus says though, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
Jesus also promises that “the one who endures to the end” in surrender to Him “will be saved.” They will have a peace that only the God Who became one of us, died for us, and then rose from death for all eternity can guarantee.
The God we know in Jesus Christ can be your very best friend. He can give you a peace that passes all understanding.
If you would like to claim that peace for the first time or claim it again this morning, I want to invite you to pray with me right now:
That's okay: As Martin Luther said, the problem with some "born-again Christians" is that they're not born again enough. We need to keep coming back to Christ so that our old sinful self can be crucified and the new child of God can keep rising from the ashes of our sin!
But if you prayed that prayer with sincerity, know this: The war is over!
You have the "it" you’ve wanted your whole life: Peace with God!
Amen
[The four points of "the Roman Road," found in many places, and the version of "the sinner's prayer" as presented here, are based on a helpful book that has helped me share my faith many times over the past decade: Steps to Peace with God, published by the publications arm of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, World Wide Publications. I don't know if it's still in print. A link to it at Amazon.com can be found above.]
[These passages of Scripture are mentioned in the sermon (most are hyperlinked above): Acts 13:22, Psalm 51:5, Romans 2:14-15, Matthew 22:36-40, Romans 5:1, Romans 6:23, John 3:16, John 1:1-14, Romans 3:23, Romans 7:19, Hebrews 9:24-28, John 1:29, Romans 10:9, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Matthew 1:18, Hebrews 4:15, and Mark 1:12-13]
I once heard a man named Bill Hybels say that every human being, without exception, is looking for the same thing. Hybels called the thing we’re all looking for, “it.”
The ways human beings look for “it” vary.
Some think they can find “it” by living a life in which they stock up pleasure, committing themselves to, in the words of our Declaration of Independence, “the pursuit of happiness.” But “it” can’t be found by that route.
Some people look for “it” by working hard for money or power or knowledge.
Others are sure that the way to “it” is by being a good person, giving to charities, or living a lifestyle of love.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with happiness, knowledge, hard work, giving, success, money, or even love. These are all good things in themselves.
But if we look to them as the means by which we find “it,” we will be disappointed.
And if we aren’t disappointed, then we are settling for much less than we were made for as human beings.
None of us should do that!
So, what is this “it”?
A man named Augustine, who lived in the fourth century, was the preeminent scholar of his day, at a time when scholars were treated like rock stars. Augustine partook of every sinful pleasure the world had to offer.
But it wasn’t enough.
In the summer of 386, deeply unhappy, Augustine threw himself down under a fig tree in desperation. There he sensed a voice, like that of a child, repeating to him over and over, “Pick up and read. Pick up and read.”
The voice was so real to Augustine that, at first, he thought it was that of a real nearby child playing some game. Then he understood that the voice had some other source.
At that time, Augustine was staying with some monks on a retreat where he hoped he could get things together. He wasn’t interested in being a Christian, mind you. His mother was a Christian and he had no interest in becoming a religious kook!
But, weeping under the fig tree, Augustine kept hearing that voice: “Pick up and read. Pick up and read.”
He later said that he could only interpret the repeated phrase to mean that he had to run into the house where he was staying, pick up a Bible from a shelf there, and read the first words he laid eyes on. He followed his instructions.
The first passage he read was in the book of Romans, chapter 13, verses 13 to 14: “Let us walk properly, as in the day, not in revelry and drunkenness, not in lewdness and lust, not in strife and envy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ...”
It was then that Augustine, to that point no believer in God, surrendered his life and will to the God revealed in Jesus Christ.
He later said in a prayer, “Almighty God, You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You.”
Not by any effort of His own, but solely by the effort of the God Who reached out to him and Who still reaches out to you and me today, Augustine received “it": peace with God.
You may say, “We might as well close up shop right now, preacher. I’m not at war with God. I may not pay much attention to God, but I’m not at war with God.”
Look! We are born at war with God!
We’re born wanting our own ways.
In the Old Testament, King David, a man the Bible later describes as “a man after God’s own heart,” had to admit, “I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.”
Sin is in the human gene pool. We inherit it from our parents and grandparents.
Sin is the condition of enmity toward God and of willfulness to do our own thing that caused me, when I wasn’t yet three years old, to ignore my mother when she told me not to pick up my baby sister and with Mom no more than five steps away, to pick her up and promptly drop her on her head, my very first childhood memory. Nobody had to teach me how to sin; I came equipped with that knowledge!
The condition of sin is a wall between God and us, between God and others.
It’s what makes it impossible for us, by our own reason or strength or effort, to love God or to love others as we love ourselves, even though the law of God written on our hearts tells us that living like that is what it means to be human!
Even people who have never heard of God have a sense that they were made to experience "it," what we know to be the peace of God, whether they can articulate that or not.
And some people are so desperate for peace with God that they fall for humanly-created religions like Islam, Mormonism, or Scientology.
U2 gave expression to our common desire for “it,” when they sang, “But I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.”
I want to be honest with you. I don’t always live in the peace of God. I let “it” slip out of my hands.
Usually without realizing it, I go on the warpath against God.
Feelings of bitterness toward those who have hurt me get my attention. Instead of asking God to bless others, I find myself praying that God would “fix them” and make them over in an image more convenient and convivial to me.
The desire to do what I want to do instead of what God wants me to do takes first place in my life.
My sinful self, along with the sin of the world and the sinful things that Satan tempts us all to do, conspire to take over my life and rob me of peace with God.
So I come to God many times a day, to ask God to tear down the wall of sin, to help me live in peace with Him, with others, and with myself, to remember that there is no peace when we’re looking out for ourselves.
But how does peace with God come to us?
I want to share with you what’s called “the Roman road,” the way peace comes to us as described in the New Testament book of Romans, the book of the Bible from which Augustine read on that summer day when he found his rest in God. I’ll also mention a few other passages in other parts of the Bible.
How do we have peace with God? First: To have peace with God, we must realize that God loves us and He wants to have everlasting peace with Him, along with a life made new by Him, a life He wants to give to us for all eternity.
When we have bad things come into our lives, as they do in all lives, we’re tempted to think that God has it in for us. A month or so ago, when I learned I had Celiac Disease, two years after I had a heart attack that took out 40% of my heart and one year after I'd learned that my heart was so weak I needed a pacemaker and defibrillator and also had to have a small melanoma cancer removed from my leg, I confess to you that I asked God why He was piling things on.
I'm ashamed of those feelings, frankly, because the Bible teaches us that, in this fallen world, bad things happen to everyone, no exceptions.
But we can have peace with God even in hard times. Romans 5:1 says: “...having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
What does this mean? Just this: The rightful fate for everyone who has sin is death. Another passage of Romans puts it this way: “the wages of sin is death.”
Think of it like this: We are all guilty of sin. If we were tried for our sin, the evidence would be overwhelming. To be justified though, is to have the verdict of “not guilty” declared over our lives.
Anyone who is declared “not guilty” of sin is at peace with God.
It was this “not guilty” verdict that changed Augustine’s life.
God wants us all to experience that.
God loves us and wants us to enjoy peace with Him. That’s why God in the flesh, Jesus, said, “For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). God wants to give us:
- Peace with God now in this imperfect world
- Peace with God forever in a perfect eternity.
You and I aren’t machines. God didn’t program us to do whatever He wanted. God gives us the power to make choices in our lives. We can choose to return His love to Him or not.
The problem, of course, is that the condition of sin has us bound so tightly that even if we resolve to return God’s love or to be at peace with God, we can’t make the decision stick.
We’re like kids peering into a shop filled with candy that’s off-limits to us because our hands and feet are manacled, in this case by our sin.
We can’t get to peace with God by our own efforts, no matter how hard we try. As Romans 7:19 says, “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.” That's why we Lutherans say in the Order for Confession and Forgiveness: "We are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves." Even when we want to choose peace with God and obedience to His commands, we are incapable of making that choice.
Third: To have peace with God, we need to know that God intervenes on our behalf. Romans 5:8 says: “...God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
The Old Testament sacrificial law held that an unblemished lamb could represent people on the altar in the temple in Jerusalem. There, the lamb was sacrificed and the repentant believers were spattered with the blood of the lamb. The lamb took the sinners‘ rightful wages, death, and the repentant were forgiven, for that moment.
But as our second lesson for today, from Hebrews, reminds us, Jesus, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world, bears the sins of all the world, once and for all.
Fourth: We must receive, by faith, Christ, the One Who has died and risen for us. Romans 10:9 says: “...if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” What an incredible promise!
Because of God's charitable love for us, what the Bible calls "grace," all who turn from sin and believe in Jesus Christ are saved from the condition of sin and its consequence--death and futility.
When you entrust your life to Jesus Christ, you will have forgiveness, life, purpose, and peace with God.
Now, I don’t want to simplify things. Having peace and eternity with God are free gifts God grants to all who turn from sin and trust in Jesus Christ. But they are gifts we find it easy to let go of.
Faith itself, the Bible teaches, isn’t something we can talk ourselves into, but only receive just as we receive any other gift.
And as long as we live in this world, our genetic predisposition to sin will haunt us.
Jesus was and is God in the flesh, perfect and sinless, conceived not by a sinful man and a sinful woman, but by the Holy Spirit. But if Jesus was tempted and tested, we can expect to be tempted and tested too!
Jesus says though, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."
Jesus also promises that “the one who endures to the end” in surrender to Him “will be saved.” They will have a peace that only the God Who became one of us, died for us, and then rose from death for all eternity can guarantee.
The God we know in Jesus Christ can be your very best friend. He can give you a peace that passes all understanding.
If you would like to claim that peace for the first time or claim it again this morning, I want to invite you to pray with me right now:
Lord Jesus, I am a sinner in need of the forgiveness only You can give. I believe that You died for my sins. I believe that You rose from the dead to open up eternity to all who will turn from their sins and let You be their God and King. I ask You to come into my life. Rule over me today and forever. Send Your Holy Spirit to me daily so that I can trust and follow You and live in Your peace. In Your Name I pray. AmenIf you're like me, you may find yourself needing to pray that prayer about twenty-five times a day.
That's okay: As Martin Luther said, the problem with some "born-again Christians" is that they're not born again enough. We need to keep coming back to Christ so that our old sinful self can be crucified and the new child of God can keep rising from the ashes of our sin!
But if you prayed that prayer with sincerity, know this: The war is over!
You have the "it" you’ve wanted your whole life: Peace with God!
Amen
[The four points of "the Roman Road," found in many places, and the version of "the sinner's prayer" as presented here, are based on a helpful book that has helped me share my faith many times over the past decade: Steps to Peace with God, published by the publications arm of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, World Wide Publications. I don't know if it's still in print. A link to it at Amazon.com can be found above.]
[These passages of Scripture are mentioned in the sermon (most are hyperlinked above): Acts 13:22, Psalm 51:5, Romans 2:14-15, Matthew 22:36-40, Romans 5:1, Romans 6:23, John 3:16, John 1:1-14, Romans 3:23, Romans 7:19, Hebrews 9:24-28, John 1:29, Romans 10:9, 2 Corinthians 5:21, Matthew 1:18, Hebrews 4:15, and Mark 1:12-13]
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Read Maria Shriver's Interview with Billy Graham
On her web site, Maria Shriver has an interview with Billy Graham. Graham has written a new book, Nearing Home. He talks about aging with faith, significance, and dignity. I like the interview, especially his discussion of the riotously funny and wise inscription Graham's late wife Ruth wanted inscribed on her tombstone. Read the whole thing.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
"Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you"
A great story from John H. Armstrong's Your Church is Too Small: Why Unity in Christ's Mission is Vital to the Future of the Church:
Some years ago, a friend shared a story about harsh attacks on Dr. Billy Graham in his early days of ministry. Many of these attacks came from former friends. His goal was to bless those Christians who attacked him. On one significant occasion, a major leader violated the work of Dr. Graham in a way that was particularly egregious. Dr. Graham hastily called a board meeting. He made it clear that there would be no counterattack. The board then prayed for the other minister and the issue was dropped.May I learn the lesson of this story showing a faithful Christian applying Jesus' words in Luke 6:28:
"Bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you."The Armstrong book is an important one, the truths of which I have been soaking up for several months now.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Preachers and Politics
[I write a column for the Community Press newspapers. This is the column version of this post.]
A new book recounts incidents from evangelist Billy Graham's experience as pastor to U.S. Presidents and their families.
The book reveals that Graham has done more than provide spiritual counsel to the eleven presidents he's known. He's offered political and policy counsel.
When the depths of Richard Nixon's unethical conduct came out, Graham was shocked into a new stance toward politics and politicians. Graham resolved to always provide pastoral counsel and care to those White House families who sought him out, but not to be a policy advisor or presidential cheerleader. "We [preachers] have to stand in the middle," Graham declared in 1981, "to preach to all the people, right and left."
Like Billy Graham, I'm a political junkie. Three years ago, in what I think was a mistake for me as a pastor, I ran for the State House of Representatives myself. I'm glad that I lost. Had I been elected, I might have forfeited my ability to reach out "to all the people, right and left..."
I encourage Christians to be involved in the political process. But it's almost never the job of a pastor or of the Church to express political opinions. I don't know what God thinks about the War in Iraq, immigration reform, or health care. I don't know any preacher who does.
A big part of my job as a preacher is to echo Jesus' call, recorded in the New Testament book of Mark, "Repent, and believe in the good news" (Mark 1:15). Jesus summarized that Good News in His famous words to Nicodemus, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life" (John 3:16).
If I mix my political preferences in with my proclamation about Jesus, it confuses people about the true content of God's message for us and, most dangerously, may unnecessarily alienate some people from Christ. Jesus' call for human beings to admit that God is bigger than them and to then surrender to God alienates some people anyway. The preacher who adds a political requirement to having a relationship with God changes the Good News and becomes no better than a peddler of cults.
Graham's example suggests that preachers should stick to preaching the Good News. It also suggests that preachers pastorally befriend politicians.
I try to do that. A few months ago, I had lunch with a Clermont County pol who has become a friend. Before we ate, I prayed. I thanked God for our food and our time together and then I asked God to bless and guide my friend in his important work. After we'd said, "Amen," I saw him dabbing his eyes. "I just can't get used to it," he said. "I'm always so moved and humbled when people pray for me. Thank you."
Praying for politicians of both parties is one of the best things anyone can do. After all, politicians are people too. Through prayer, preachers and others can ask God to offer leaders His counsel. And they need God's counsel far more than they need ours!
A new book recounts incidents from evangelist Billy Graham's experience as pastor to U.S. Presidents and their families.
The book reveals that Graham has done more than provide spiritual counsel to the eleven presidents he's known. He's offered political and policy counsel.
When the depths of Richard Nixon's unethical conduct came out, Graham was shocked into a new stance toward politics and politicians. Graham resolved to always provide pastoral counsel and care to those White House families who sought him out, but not to be a policy advisor or presidential cheerleader. "We [preachers] have to stand in the middle," Graham declared in 1981, "to preach to all the people, right and left."
Like Billy Graham, I'm a political junkie. Three years ago, in what I think was a mistake for me as a pastor, I ran for the State House of Representatives myself. I'm glad that I lost. Had I been elected, I might have forfeited my ability to reach out "to all the people, right and left..."
I encourage Christians to be involved in the political process. But it's almost never the job of a pastor or of the Church to express political opinions. I don't know what God thinks about the War in Iraq, immigration reform, or health care. I don't know any preacher who does.
A big part of my job as a preacher is to echo Jesus' call, recorded in the New Testament book of Mark, "Repent, and believe in the good news" (Mark 1:15). Jesus summarized that Good News in His famous words to Nicodemus, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life" (John 3:16).
If I mix my political preferences in with my proclamation about Jesus, it confuses people about the true content of God's message for us and, most dangerously, may unnecessarily alienate some people from Christ. Jesus' call for human beings to admit that God is bigger than them and to then surrender to God alienates some people anyway. The preacher who adds a political requirement to having a relationship with God changes the Good News and becomes no better than a peddler of cults.
Graham's example suggests that preachers should stick to preaching the Good News. It also suggests that preachers pastorally befriend politicians.
I try to do that. A few months ago, I had lunch with a Clermont County pol who has become a friend. Before we ate, I prayed. I thanked God for our food and our time together and then I asked God to bless and guide my friend in his important work. After we'd said, "Amen," I saw him dabbing his eyes. "I just can't get used to it," he said. "I'm always so moved and humbled when people pray for me. Thank you."
Praying for politicians of both parties is one of the best things anyone can do. After all, politicians are people too. Through prayer, preachers and others can ask God to offer leaders His counsel. And they need God's counsel far more than they need ours!
Preachers and Politics: Billy Graham as a Case Study
A recent issue of TIME magazine excerpts a book that looks at evangelist Billy Graham's relationships with eleven US Presidents--from Harry Truman to George W. Bush.But it does more than recount incidents from Graham's experience as presidential pastor.
Senator and former First Lady Hillary Clinton, one of the collection of one-time White House occupants who Graham knows best, told the authors that Graham is also a "political junkie." "He loved elections because he knew that you had to tell a story, you had to connect with people--all the things we talk about in politics," she says.
The President to whom Graham, a lifelong registered Democrat, was personally closest was Lyndon Johnson. As Graham recounts in his autobiography, his counsel often went way beyond the spiritual. Graham offered LBJ advice on the President's War on Poverty program and in fact, seriously weighed an offer to leave his evangelistic ministry to become Johnson's anti-poverty czar.
Graham is probably most well-known for his relationship with Richard Nixon, to whom he imparted advice and to whom he sometimes gave a prominent place at his crusades.
"But," Gibbs and Duffy write, "on the heels of Graham's crushing experience with the Nixon Administration, the evangelist recalibrated his relationship with the White House and kept his distance."
As some evangelical Christians started what became known as the Moral Majority or the Religious Right, Graham said:
Evangelicals can't be closely identified with any particular party or person. We have to stand in the middle, to preach to all the people, right and left. I haven't been faithful to my own advice in the past. I will in the future.I identify with Billy Graham. I'm a political junkie and I've likened the excitement I feel on election nights to what I felt as a kid on Christmas Eve. I was a Social Studies major and to this day, I love reading biographies and histories recounting the political leadership and maneuvering of pols. I keep up with current events. In a former life, I ran a congressional campaign and worked for the State House of Representatives in Columbus.
Three years ago, I made what I recently have described as one of my biggest mistakes as a pastor. Concerned about public school funding in Ohio, I ran for the State House of Representatives myself. The congregation I serve as pastor was okay with my making the bid. I'm sure that I could have juggled my schedule to have continued full time as a pastor and still served in the House.
But, in all honesty, I'm glad that I finished fourth in a five-way primary contest. Had I been elected, I might well have forfeited my ability to fulfill my call as a preacher of Jesus Christ's Gospel. As Graham puts it, we preachers are to reach out "to all the people, right and left." And everywhere else on the political spectrum.
I encourage Christians to be involved in the political process. To inform themselves about issues and candidates. To pray about what's right. To get involved in political campaigns. To vote.
But it's almost never the job of a pastor or of the Church as an institution to express a political preference.
What does God think about the War in Iraq? Or immigration reform? Or US terrorism policy? Or capital gains taxes? I don't know for sure and I don't know anyone else who does.
My job as a preacher is to invite people to turn from sin and follow Jesus. If I mix my political preferences in with my proclamation, it confuses people about the true content of God's message for us and, most dangerously, may unnecessarily alienate some people from Christ. Preachers who do politics make people feel excluded from Christ.
Some people will feel alienated from Christ and His Gospel anyway. The Gospel we preachers share isn't all happy talk. "When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die," Lutheran theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote. The "old Adam" and the "old Eve," our inborn sinful selves whose prime impulse is to look out for ourselves, others be damned, must die.
A big part of following Jesus thus entails living in what Martin Luther called "daily repentance and renewal," bringing the old self and our sins to God, asking for cleansing, and the power to live this day in love for God and love for others.
All of this entails surrender, something that any audience a preacher might address will find difficult to swallow anyway. The preacher who then adds things to her or his proclamation, things like, "Oh yeah, to be right with God, you also have to vote this way or support this candidate," is adding an unnecessary obstacle to people having a relationship with God. They're diluting and changing the Gospel message they were called to proclaim. In that sense, they become no better than your friendly neighborhood peddler of cults.
Preachers should not, except in the most extreme circumstances, express political preferences. We have bigger fish to catch. Our focus should be to act as mouthpieces for Jesus' call that we die to sin, so that we can rise to live with God forever.
But there will be times when, in the political realm, the conflict between complete evil and good is so clear that a preacher will have to speak out. That was what happened to Bonhoeffer in Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler's hatred was so obvious, so contrary to Christ's Gospel of love, that it was clear that every Christian preacher and leader should oppose it.
Few found the courage to do so. Bonhoeffer did. He joined a plot to overthrow Hitler and in the waning days of World War Two, after an extensive period of imprisonment, was executed.
Only those of the most extreme politics would suggest that we have faced a Hitler in US politics in recent years. I remember hearing a "Christian preacher" during the 1996 election cycle, saying that if Bill Clinton were re-elected to the presidency, it would be the last free election we ever had in America. We've had several since.
And today, people concerned about the expansive interpretation of executive power followed by the Bush Administration, compare the current president to Hitler. But it appears that our elective process is continuing to unfold and that, if the polls are credible, the 2008 presidential election race is the Democrats to lose.
Christians in this country and people in the country at large don't need to hear about the political preferences of preachers. Inquiring minds could care less.
What they really need to know from us is..
that God is for them when life doesn't make sense,They need to know that God wants to be with them now and forever.
that God wants to help them make the most of their lives,
that God can forgive the sins that cause them shame, and
that they can be made new.
Like Graham, I haven't always followed my own advice, although I've never expressed a political opinion from the pulpit. (Not that I know of, anyway.)
But that won't prevent me from befriending politicians, either. Whether the general public knows it or not, politicians are people too.
There's one local pol with whom I have regular contact. A few months ago, we had lunch together. I asked him if he'd like to pray before we dug into our Chipotle burritos. He said yes. I thanked God for our food and our time together and then I asked God to bless and guide my friend in his important work.
After we'd said, "Amen," I looked across the table and saw that his eyes glistened with tears. As he dabbed his eyes with his napkin he said, "I just can't get used to it. I'm always so moved and humbled when people pray for me. Thank you."
And when all is said and done, praying for politicians of both parties is one of the best things we can do for them, for our flocks, for our country, and for the world. Through prayer, we can ask God to go to leaders and counsel them. As the great Frank Laubach wrote years ago, "We can do more for the world with prayer than if we were to walk into Whitehall, London, or the Kremlin in Moscow, and tell those men [sic] what to do---far more! If they listened to our suggestions, we would probably be more or less wrong [emphasis mine]. But what God tells them, when they listen to Him, must be right. It is infinitely better for world leaders to listen to God than for them to listen to us."
Preachers would do well to emulate the course that has been Billy Graham's since the humiliation he experienced on learning that Richard Nixon, the President he most publicly embraced, had been so decidedly un-Christian in the conduct of his presidency. He's befriended pols and he's prayed for them. But he's decoded to act only as their pastor and preacher, not their counselor, confidante, or advocate.
Gibbs and Duffy conclude their TIME magazine excerpt:
Graham recalled these [presidential] friendships with the humility that comes with experience. "As I look back, I feel even more unqualified--to think I sat there and talked to the President of the United States," he said. "I can only explain that God was planning it in some ways, but I didn't understand it." He doesn't expect to make it back to the White House anytime soon, but he watches out for its occupant the best way he knows how. He does daily devotions, and whoever sits in the Oval Office will always have a place in his prayers.[Also see here.]
[THANKS TO: Article 6 Blog for linking to this post. Written by John Schroeder, also of Blogotional, the piece also takes a prominent fundamentalist theologian to task for his views on these matters.]
Thursday, June 14, 2007
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